


Only A Wonder

by Aikori_Ichijouji, AkisMusicBox



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: A Liberal Dose of Innuendo, Alcohol, Animal Death, Experimentation, Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg are in Cahoots, M/M, Potions, Sensory Overload, Wargs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27808414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aikori_Ichijouji/pseuds/Aikori_Ichijouji, https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkisMusicBox/pseuds/AkisMusicBox
Summary: "Then wait until tonight." Yennefer smirked, placing the vial in his hand and closing his fingers around it. "The storm will have blocked out all moonlight, so you'll get the full experience. Take it then and you'll see how your witcher sees the rest of the world."Yennefer makes Jaskier a tempting offer. Geralt chases after him.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 6
Kudos: 149





	Only A Wonder

The tavern was bustling with nervous excitement, which was Jaskier's second favorite mood for an audience. The first was, naturally, drunken merriment, as it made the patrons more liberal with their coin. However, nervous excitement was a bit of a gamble. When the object of the nervousness was revealed, it either meant the audience turning sour — which was his cue to stop playing — or relieved — which meant play louder and rowdier. This evening was one of his least risky bets in a long time, even with Yennefer plying her trade at a table not too far from Jaskier's corner.

Yennefer was giving a young maid a vial with a green liquid. The maid had begged her for a love potion, but the only thing that vial was apt to do is put some pep in the beau's step and eliminate his halitosis, Jaskier knew from the last time Yennefer threatened him with it. To her credit, Yennefer had remained patient with the paltry requests that had come her way so far, for the same reason Jaskier did — it was only a matter of time before their fortunes turned.

The door to the tavern burst open. Jaskier stopped playing. A mud and rain soaked peasant cried, "The horror! A mud devil is headed this way with the head of a beast in its claws!"

Jaskier grinned and locked eyes with the tavern owner. "That'll be him! Might pop off and get that bath running you promised."

The tavern owner grabbed her daughter and shooed her along to complete the task. "Doesn't stop him from being a devil," the owner grumbled as she pulled out a purse of coins. "Finding a pack of wargs in a storm."

Jaskier laughed as he joined Yennefer at her table. "Do you fault the hawk or the wildcat for their eyes? Witchers aren't human, aye, but we're all the better for it."

The commotion of the tavern picked up, anticipation bubbling, bubbling for Geralt's return. Yennefer gave Jaskier a wry smile. "Is that what you think?" she asked. "That his vision is like a cat’s or a bird’s?"

Jaskier shrugged. "Probably? I mean..." He waved at his eyes. "The color and shape aren't just for aesthetics, clearly."

Yennefer reached in her bag and pulled out a smal, vial filled with a yellow liquid. "Do you want to know for certain? The witcher's eye mutations were based on this potion's effects."

Jaskier balked. "I like the way I see things just fine, thanks! I think they’ve helped us all out quite well the way they are."

Yennefer rolled her eyes. "The effects are temporary, duration based on metabolism. Taking it too many times over a short period of time will cause toxicity, hence why the witchers found a way to make the change permanent." She shook the vial in front of his face. "Come now. Base your next ballad on something real, not just the whims of artistic license."

Jaskier frowned at the vial in Yennefer's hand, wondering how long he had to stall her before their pale-haired paragon returned. She'd said something about metabolism but he knew little of his own save for his above average tolerance of alcohol. Perhaps that would be enough? No, he wasn't about to start dabbling in substances not for him. He did enough of that during his time back at the Academy.

"I'm not usually one for dares, Yen." Jaskier curled his frown further downward.

"Yes, you usually leave that to the able bodied and preternaturally empowered, don't you?" Yennefer sneered.

He sniffed. "It's my calling to document them."

"Self-appointed calling, you mean," Yennefer scoffed, lowering the bottle. Jaskier almost sighed in relief until she raised it again. "Not all experiences can be won through a second hand account. After Filavandrel, I'm certain you know this as well."

Jaskier looked around at the tavern full of animated townsfolk. "Do we have to do it here? Now?"

Yennefer laughed. "Were I feeling far more vindictive, maybe, but I won't be held responsible for your eyes burning out in all this candlelight. The potion's meant to be used in the dark."

This time Jaskier did breathe out his relief in one long puff. He bobbed his head in an uneasy nod. There was always something unsettling about agreeing to the witch's prodding. He never wanted to guess why he always went along with it. The last thing he needed was to question his own free will.

"Then wait until tonight." Yennefer smirked, placing the vial in his hand and closing his fingers around it. "The storm will have blocked out all moonlight, so you'll get the full experience. Take it then and you'll see how your witcher sees the rest of the world."

As the door to the tavern burst open a second time, Jaskier slipped the vial into his pocket. _If she's not asking for coin, then the price must be her watching the results._ He swallowed. _Oh well, just my pride._

Geralt was indeed dripping with mud and blood when he returned, nearly fully obscuring his stark-white hair. The head of the warg would be unrecognizable with the coating of grime, if not for the wicked, long teeth. Geralt just stood there, dripping for a moment as the door swung closed behind him.

Jaskier slammed a hand on the table and shouted, "The White Wolf returns!"

The tavern cheered. The tavern owner swore and ran at him with a towel. Jaskier drank deeply from his beer.

"Don't lose your nerve, poet," Yennefer said with a raised eyebrow. "Geralt will stop you from taking it if you let it slip."

Jaskier cleared his throat. "I'm just preparing my instrument. But... If you said only repeated exposure caused problems, why would he stop me?"

Yennefer blinked. "Because who knows what havoc you'll cause in the meantime? Isn't it obvious what he'd think?"

Jaskier didn’t have time to ponder it. After the most viscous layer of grime was removed, Geralt shoved the warg head in the tavern owner's hands and approached their table.

"It was just some pups, Geralt, no need to make a scene," Yennefer said, looking him up and down.

Geralt exhaled slowly. "Then next time I'll let you show me how it's done." He reached for Jaskier's beer and drained the remains. Jaskier didn't fuss. "Cat got your tongue?" Geralt grumbled.

Jaskier jumped up from the table. "N-not at all! I have to get back at it, after all. And you deserve a drink and some rest." He grabbed his lute and addressed the tavern. "Our savior returns! Won't you all be so kind and toss a coin his way?" Jaskier strummed and started in on his signature song.

The tavern set about singing along, approaching Yennefer, and leaving a few coins for Jaskier. A handful came to the witcher himself, and while Geralt wasn't rude, his gaze kept going back to Jaskier, as if studying him. Having the yellow, catlike eyes pierce him made him weak in the knees, but Geralt couldn't possibly know that, could he? And what would he think was the cause?

Before the tune ended, Geralt stood and made his way to his room. Before he slipped away, however, he gave Jaskier one last stare. Jaskier's heart beat out of control.

* * *

A cart was abandoned in the middle of a field left in fallow with one wheel missing. It was inside the cart's splinter-ridden bed that Jaskier decided to place himself while pondering over the small vial in his hand. He was far enough from lit torches in the town as they were weak around the edges of the hungry blackness of night. It seemed like the best place for this. Yennefer had recommended total darkness for the full effects of the potion to be appreciated, after all.

Jaskier spun the vial round in his fingers, watching the amber liquid slosh against the sides. With his teeth, he pulled the cork out from the mouth of it. A sharp tang of alcohol hit his nose, followed by a sweet floral scent. A droplet clung to the cork and he tentatively gave it a lick.

It was bitter. He considered suggesting that someone add a drop of honey or treacle or something to the concoction for the sake of anyone who dared drink it. Well, there was nothing for it but to screw his eyes shut and drink it. Thus he did, holding his nose the entire way until nothing remained in the bottle save for scant droplets crawling down the sides.

The effects were almost instantaneous.

"Gods," he whispered into the night, his eyes wide.

There was a deer in the brush some seventy paces straight ahead from where he sat that he could see clear as day. A rabbit scurried past off to his right. And then there were the clouds. The sky stretched out above him a mottled marble of greys and yellows and blues, all swirling and mixing endlessly.

His mind ran rampant with verses and choruses, with rhyme and meter. The colors he saw, the details he could make out in complete darkness, he wanted to capture it all. He was abuzz with excitement and he wondered if it was that or the potion that staved off the cold. He should have been freezing in just his billowy shirt and pants. The chill dampness of the wooden slats should have seeped through the seams of his clothing after the dousing they received from the storm earlier in the day.

He paid it little mind of course, too in awe of the heretofore unseen splendor around him. At least, until a gruff voice pierced through the silence.

"What has she done to you this time?"

He did feel cold at that, but not nearly as startled as he would have any other time. It was as clear as day to him that his surroundings were alive and that one more being was not to be unexpected. This particular being wasn't ideal at this early stage, but it was too late to matter.

Jaskier stood, looking towards the heavens, not caring about defending himself. "It's beautiful, Geralt. It's all so beautiful."

Geralt's footsteps were nearly silent, just nearly, because he clearly wasn't trying to hide himself. He smelled like soap and leather and the smoke from a fireplace. And then, Jaskier heard it: _thump_.

And then, an eternity later: _thump_.

Geralt grabbed Jaskier's arms and turned him around. Jaskier couldn't control his grin — he could see every line on his face and every frizzy flyaway on his hastily-dried hair. He could see just how big his pupils were, devouring the scene in front of him. He could smell the wine that Geralt had drunk just prior, as if to warm his insides before plunging back out into the chilly night again. "Your heartbeat is impossibly slow," Jaskier said, drunkenly.

Geralt grabbed the front of Jaskier's shirt and pulled Jaskier's head level with his. "Fuck," was his reply. He released him. "Yennefer's gone too far this time."

"Too far?" Jaskier asked. "So far this is one of the kindest things she's ever done for me. This is incredible. If someone had shown me a painting of this I'd never believed the world could be so beautiful in pitch darkness. I could write a score of poems from this spot alone."

"Stop," Geralt growled. "That's how all addicts sound before they're consumed by it."

Jaskier didn't bother asking the question, merely raising an eyebrow that, he knew, would be impossible for Geralt to miss.

Geralt continued. "Little lordlings think they can take it just one more time, just to see what additional pleasure they can wring out an encounter. They think themselves more than a man, but I'm telling you right now there is a reason I am not human."

Jaskier ran his hands through his hair. "But the world claims you unfeeling, but this!" His voice was filled with unbridled joy. "If the world knew just how much you truly saw, things would be different." He found Geralt's eyes again. "Take me into the woods. Just for awhile. I won't be greedy, I promise. And you can beat me senseless if I do, but milk's already split and I can't waste this in a room in the tavern."

"This beauty you claim to witness is only a wonder to those who remember what it is like to see the world otherwise," Geralt explained and Jaskier took no small amount of thrill from the low register of his voice. "Like a child born and raised in a house of shit would never know that it smells."

Jaskier's yelp when the Witcher pulled him from the cart was delayed and quavering. The sensory overload had him reeling inside and out. Geralt frowned down at him, looking him over with eyes that appeared to be little more than thin, delicate rings of gold in the shadow of pupils blown wide to devour any available light. He giggled at the silent poetry that wrote itself in his head.

"This is only supposed to enhance your vision." Geralt narrowed his eyes and Jaskier missed their full brilliance. "What she gave you, how did it look?"

Jaskier shrugged. "A pearlescent yellow that shone like the moon on a late Autumn evening when the chill in the air's —"

Geralt placed a hand over the bard's mouth. It was warm and rough and Jaskier wanted to faint at the feel of it.

"Looks like you unwittingly volunteered yourself for one of her experiments," Geralt grumbled and hefted one of Jaskier's arms over his shoulders. "Let's find somewhere for you to ride this out."

"Not exactly the best choice of words," Jaskier said with a hiccup and a titter. "But, yes, lead on."

He guided them both to a small thicket in the woods with trees and shrubs dense all around them and the sky open above. Jaskier wasted no time in lying on the grass to gaze upward. He tugged on Geralt's sleeve on his way down, coaxing him silently to join him. He followed with a heavy sigh.

Geralt's warmth next to him — despite them not touching — was a distraction, but not an overwhelming one. The lattice that each branch, each leaf, created of the night sky made him ready to wax poetically about nature creating its own lace. However, his sense of smell caught up with him. "What am I smelling, Geralt?" he asked. Otherwise, he'd get up on his hands and knees and set about smelling every plant in the area.

"Celandine, for start," he said. "Moleyarrow as well, both used in things you must stay away from. Faint traces of honeysuckle and white myrtle. And then, the earthiness —"

"Mushrooms trying to grow on damp ground?" The guess burst out of Jaskier.

"Mm."

"That's smelling life, Geralt," Jaskier marveled. "New growth from nothing."

"That's identifying fungus and discerning if it will release toxins," Geralt said.

Jaskier turned to look at Geralt and then he wondered if it wasn't a mistake. He looked carved of stone, tempting him to run a hand along and feel both the smoothness and cracks with equal reverence. He worried about how fast his heart was beating and what code it betrayed to Geralt's keen ears. "Was that trained or learned, Geralt? Appraising the world in measures of lethality?"

"The world doesn't need a collection of preternaturally enhanced beings to marvel at it," he replied, still looking at the sky. "The audience for it would be dead if witchers were poets."

"And how does that sustain you?" Jaskier asked. "Without universal praise, without a bed to sleep on every night, without —" Jaskier froze as another scent found him, tainting the sweetness of the flowers and warmth of leather.

Geralt turned his head to Jaskier in a way that was only normal to his current state. "Jaskier," he said, so low, so soft. "You must remain calm. You will be safe. But this beauty will turn to a horror soon." Geralt swallowed. "You're smelling blood and wet fur. One last warg is coming this way."

Jaskier really felt the cold then, heavy and sopping wet and it went straight through to his bones. His face was flushed and his pulse pounded an incessant drumbeat through his skull. Muscles tight in anticipation, he got up to crouch beside Geralt, who already had a hand on the sword strapped to his back. Jaskier swore he'd never been this full to bursting with adrenaline in his life.

Their eyes darted to the left at the same time. Geralt's grip tightened around the handle of his sword but he didn't draw it yet and Jaskier heard the creak of the leather. The warg drew ever closer, the gleam of it's eyes visible before the ragged outline of it's rain-bedraggled hide. Jaskier, wisely, let Geralt move in front of him and took a step back.

The witcher's blade was out and ready by the time the beast entered the clearing. The scent of it overwhelmed Jaskier's nose until all he smelled was muddy fur and rain and blood. It watched him, he noticed and realized that he was identified as the easier target. As it circled them, so too did Jaskier mirror its movements to keep Geralt between them.

Geralt also noticed this and adjusted his stance, raising his sword to aim for the warg's blind side. Jaskier read this change and almost smiled. He was no stranger to being a diversion. So he kept his sights locked with their opponent and waited for Geralt to find his moment to strike.

The whole ordeal was over almost too soon, between a burst of fire from Geralt's palm and two swift slashes of his sword. The fluidity of the man's movements, the flash of steel as it arced through the air, and the beast's truncated wails had a beauty and grace worthy of an epic ballad. Jaskier only lamented that their thicket had been tainted by the smell of burning flesh. He turned to Geralt who sheathed his sword and surveyed the creature's remains.

"Is it like that for you every time?" he breathed the question softly into the air. "The hyper-awareness?"

"Most of the time."

The quickening of Jaskier's pulse refused to abate as he picked his way past the viscera and fur. He gulped in a breath and immediately regretted it the moment the metallic tang of smoke and blood hit his palate. The air was thick with it and he was almost sick right there on the ground. A firm hand wrapped around his arm and he felt Geralt pulling him away from the scene, back towards the town. He tried to protest, but it only came out as a strangled groan.

"Perhaps you won't be so opposed to staying in that tavern room now?" Geralt asked and Jaskier's enhanced senses were wasted on the obvious smirk in his voice.

Jaskier just nodded.

* * *

Even the torch light was blinding when they neared the tavern, so Jaskier closed his eyes and held Geralt's arm as they made their way inside. He focused on his and Geralt's footfalls and Geralt's heartbeat. _Thump.... thump...._ It helped calm his nerves and take the edge off his nausea.

But it left him unaware if Geralt was leading him to his own room, or Geralt's. Geralt guided him to the bed and only then did Jaskier open his eyes. Weathered wood and scratchy linen were only a distraction to Geralt pouring a glass of wine from a flagon on the side table and giving it to him. He drank it greedily, but nearly regretted it. It tasted of blackberries gone sour, rotten oak barrels, and honey attempting to mask the former two. "Bah!" Jaskier spat. "Absolutely dreadful. No wonder you always have a sour look on your face."

Geralt gave a small chuckle as he poured his own glass. Jaskier continued. "I've figured out what we will do once you retire, Geralt."

Geralt leaned against the table and said, "Witchers don't retire; they expire." But his tone carried a note of amusement, as if telling Jaskier to go on.

So he did. "Hogwash," Jaskier said. "You've one life, yet four primary limbs. Eight if you break it down to hands, arms, legs, and feet. That's eight times the greater risk of you losing one or more of them then dying. Your eyes or ears go? Bah, no chance of you monster hunting. So, in the considerably more likely event of your forcible retirement, we will become wine merchants."

Geralt raised an eyebrow as he drank.

"I'll make the small talk, you know, butter them up, and once they're good and comfortable, you'll taste the wine." Jaskier took another drink, then scowled. In a low rasp, he said, " _'This tastes worse than the black blood of a striga born of incest. You're wasting our time with this poison.'_ "

Geralt laughed. Any other time, Jaskier would have thought it a chuckle, but he could hear the mirth dripping in the sound. He could see the curve of Geralt's lips and the shake in Geralt's shoulders. The low rumble shook through Jaskier and warmed him on the inside. Jaskier's heart was a jack-rabbit thump and only then did he realize he'd be a fool trying to hide it. That, for all he attempted in the past, he'd only been wasting his energy trying to conceal it from a witcher.

Geralt grew quiet for a while before he said, "Jaskier," as if trying to explain himself.

"I will miss this," Jaskier said. "For one reason alone and that is the opportunity to see you more clearly. More completely. For that I am ever grateful and ever loathed to see it pass."

"Your experiences are already enhanced through your words and music, as are those of everyone around you," Geralt's voice and expression were both softer than he’d ever witnessed. "You've no need to throw your lot in with the likes of me."

"True, there is no need, as you say. But there was very much a want," Jaskier relented and frowned in thought. "Though, I suppose, it was rather unfair and rude of me to dabble in something with the promise of it only being temporary when you're permanently saddled with it; and not by choice. For that, I apologize."

He regretted the words the second they left his mouth when he saw Geralt avert his gaze for a moment. The flicker of sorrow across his face told a story Jaskier wished he didn't have the words for. There was no need for him to point it out, but he felt compelled to all the same. Though, he wondered if biting off his own tongue would have been a better choice.

"None necessary," Geralt assured him. "You did it with no ill intent."

Jaskier knew not if Geralt referred to his actions or his words, but greedily assumed both.

"So, wine merchants?" he asked and Jaskier was inexplicably happy that it was Geralt who redirected the conversation for a change.

"We make the perfect team!" Jaskier crowed. "Plus, wouldn't it be nice to venture into a musty cellar without the added caveat of defeating a monster there?"

Geralt shook his head. "That's not a future I ever envisioned."

His thoughts snagged on those words. Jaskier wanted to let them pass without mention and tried to force himself to just nod solemnly and move on. But they became too close. They shared something far too profound for him to ignore it.

"So you have imagined one? A future, I mean."

"More accepted than imagined." Geralt sipped from his drink and made a face that Jaskier will forever associate with the taste of shitty wine. "There’s been little room for anything more."

"Well I, and my woefully limited authority, declare that even witchers should be free to dream."

Geralt chuckled. It was warm and Jaskier knew that never in a hundred lifetimes would he be able to replicate that timbre with any instrument. Thus, he committed it to a memory that he will mourn as it fades with time.

"Should I lose my sight or hearing, I'll be sure to send word for you to set up shop." Geralt raised his flagon in salute.

Jaskier grinned and returned the gesture. "I've a storefront in Oxenfurt already in mind."

Despite the foul taste, the wine did not fall short when it came to its primary function of numbing the senses. At some point, Jaskier ended up on the floor, covered in a blanket. And at some other point, after dawn had broken, he woke with a splitting headache, cottonmouth, and privacy. It hadn't been the first time he'd woken like this. It wouldn't be the last. But it certainly was the most reluctant.

He snuck back to his room to change and fix his hair before heading to the main room of the tavern. Yennefer and Geralt were exchanging loaded looks at each other. Yennefer's expression turned to glee when she saw Jaskier. "You've survived. Excellent."

Jaskier flopped in the seat on the bench next to Geralt. "One of these times a mage will do something to me that guarantees that, not hopes for it. Or at least allow me to give properly informed consent."

Yennefer wrinkled her nose and leaned forward. "What is this?" She rubs a rough thumb along his lips and pulls back a smudge of maroon on it. "Wine. For goodness sakes that defeats the purpose of the experience, doesn't it?"

"The previous experience with the warg was a bit much, so I had to balance it out somehow." Smells were assailing Jaskier once again, but this time it was the full breakfast in front of Geralt and not Geralt himself.

"Perhaps unnecessary if someone did his job right the first time?" Yennefer poked at Geralt.

"Definitively so if someone would keep her experiments to herself." Geralt buttered a chunk of bread and offered it to Jaskier. Jaskier didn't know if his stomach could take it, but he took a bite anyway.

It was soft and rich and it made him feel alive. Jaskier took the bread and devoured it. A pit opened up in his stomach and it growled.

Yennefer signed. "Now I don't know whether this is a side effect of alcohol or Witcher in a Bottle."

Geralt rolled his eyes. "Rename it. His heart rate remained the same, so it's not a perfect recreation of the experience. And don't try to make it perfect because it'd put a human in a coma." He forked a sausage and offered it to Jaskier next.

Jaskier grabbed the fork and took a bite. "So good," he moaned through a full mouth. And then, nearly imperceptibly, he thought he saw the corner of Geralt's mouth twitch.

He quickly waved a fork at Yennefer. "Next time, I need a full write up on the potential side effects in advance. I'd be eating tree bark in the middle of the forest if I'd have woken up lost in a state like this. Starving, I am!"

Yennefer rolled her eyes, "Do you know what nobles are willing to put up with merely to achieve an erection? The pains women put themselves through for fertility? Such a pest you're being for what I've given you."

Geralt slid his short beer to Jaskier. "Don't bother, she'll never concede. Just get yourself ready for another long ride today."

Jaskier buried a grin in the mug.

**Author's Note:**

> AKA the origin story of Toss A Coin Beverage Distribution, Inc.


End file.
